Union Can Expect Tough Time In Kissimmee Contract Talks

May 5, 1985|By Gina Thomas of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE — Several city commissioners say they will head into salary negotiations with a hard-nosed attitude toward Kissimmee's recently unionized blue-collar workers, whose vote last week to join Laborers' International surprised and disappointed some officials.

Commissioners say their labor philosophy means they will be stingy with unionized employees, as leverage to persuade them to drop the union. They emphasized their tight-fisted track records with the police and firefighters, who booted their unions several years ago.

Kissimmee Mayor George Gant said he wants the unionized employees cut from any salary studies.

Is that a vindictive attitude? ''You bet it is,'' Gant said. ''I'll never approve a salary that is greater than the rest of the employees even if salary studies show they're way below.''

But labor studies show employees unionize because of many reasons, the least of which is pay. Former Kissimmee City Manager O. Sam Ackley said commissioners missed the point of the union vote and have themselves to blame. Ackley said the water and sewer employees -- who formed the bulk of union support -- endured ''a lot of disruption'' that focused attention away from the day-to-day operations of their department.

Ackley promoted Public Works Director George Mann to chief of the water and sewer department and told them to merge the two. Several commissioners balked at the move and immediately removed Mann. Later he was reinstated as chief of water and sewer with the understanding that the dual post may be temporary.

Consequently, the water and sewer employees lacked permanent leadership for months. Mixed signals also were sent to Mann -- whom Ackley called the only ''stabilizing force'' during a time of management change -- shattering his morale and confusing the rank and file.

''I think the employees felt insecure and I don't blame them,'' he said. ''I'm sure they felt like they were so much stock, to be herded around.''

Ackley, whose tenure ended when he quit to work for developer Tommy Tomkins, also blamed himself for failing to foresee a strong, negative sentiment toward putting the water and sewer department under Mann's wing.

When leaders fail to create a good working environment, employees don't look forward to the job, Ackley said. ''They don't want to go to work and spend half the day coping with their environment.''

City blue-collar employees Tuesday voted 57 to 39 to join Laborers' International Local 678 in Orlando. None of the ballots was challenged, and the results will be certified within 15 days of the election.

The vote marked the first time that general employees have been organized. Police and firefighters voted to decertify their unions in different elections several years ago on the promises that commissioners would be more generous with them.

Al Gross, the union's representative, was out of town last week and could not be reached for comment. He has said Laborers' International will have a meeting of the blue-collar employees covered by the union and make a list of employee concerns. The rank and file will form a committee that will go to the bargaining table for a contract.

City commissioners, polled last week, expressed similar attitudes in their labor approach. Naomi Winbush was out of town until Monday and could not be reached.

Gant said the unionized employees are on their own: He wants them excluded from salary studies and won't consider valid any salary comparisions done by Laborers' International.

Each year commissioners have focused on a group of employees whose salaries were shown to be below the average in Central Florida, Gant said. ''Those in the union don't get that benefit. We're not bartering for them; the union is.''

Commissioner Bruce Van Meter said salary studies must be done to ensure Kissimmee has competitive wage scales that will keep good employees. But a union ''just creates another layer employees have to go through'' and prevents them from dealing as individuals.

Van Meter, who dealt as a store owner with unionized employees when he lived in Detroit, said the labor groups approach employees with ''pie-in-the- sky'' demands that are eventually bargained down to a contract on which both sides can agree -- but those drawn-out negotiations cost the taxpayers.

''We have to have our attorneys in on it and they're not cheap,'' Van Meter said.

Unions typically are perceived as adversaries to owners and managers. And all the new union will do is create ''hard feelings and antagonism'' among managers, Commissioner Jimmy Wells said.

''They try to take control out of managers and put it into union leaders,'' Wells said. ''That's not a healthy situation.''

Wells said he wants commissioners to adopt a posture similar to the one they had when dealing with police and firefighters unions. ''Historically, they got lower raises.''

Commissioner Ken Maher said he was surprised but not disappointed.

''If that's the vehicle they want to use, I have no problem,'' Maher said. ''But they have elected to say we don't want to be treated as individuals. We cannot address them if they're grossly underpaid. So the city has no choice.''